Pubdate: Tue, 27 Mar 2001 Source: Albuquerque Journal (NM) Copyright: 2001 Albuquerque Journal Contact: P.O. Drawer J, Albuquerque, N.M. 87103 Website: http://www.abqjournal.com/ Author: Rene Romo, Southern Bureau 2 PRISON DEATHS, DRUG DEALING MAY BE LINKED LAS CRUCES - Two state prison inmates found dead in their cells Monday morning were victims of a power struggle over the prison's drug trade, prison officials said. Preliminary results of an autopsy by the Office of the Medical Investigator determined the two victims were strangled to death in their cells at the Southern New Mexico Correctional Facility several miles west of Las Cruces. The victims were identified as Rolando Garza, 23, and Frank Castillo, 32, both of Albuquerque. They were found in their bunks shortly after 9 a.m. Monday while other inmates were at breakfast. The roughly 800-inmate prison, with separate minimum and medium-security wings, remained under lockdown Tuesday as State Police and the Corrections Department continued their investigations. Investigators have learned the killings occurred while inmates were released from their cells into the housing unit and guards were busy moving inmates to their morning activities, said Corrections Department spokesman Gerges Scott. Investigators believe several people were involved in each of the killings, and that some type of garrote was used. The killings were the worst incidence of prison violence in New Mexico since an August 1999 riot at a private prison near Santa Rosa, when a guard was killed. Garza and Castillo were among gang-affiliated inmates kept separate from nongang inmates in their own individual cells at the southern New Mexico prison, Scott said. Garza began serving an eight-year sentence on Feb. 16, 2000, for a voluntary manslaughter charge stemming from a 1999 slaying in Albuquerque. Garza, also known as "Looney," was charged in the early morning May 12, 1999 slaying of 19-year-old Robert Almaraz, a Sandia High School graduate, outside a gas station on Coors SW while the victim talked to friends. Castillo began serving a five-year sentence in February 1999 for robbery and violating terms of his probation. Castillo had served a one-year sentence in prison after pleading guilty in November 1998 to a robbery charge stemming from a June 1998 incident in Dona Ana County, in which he snatched a purse from a woman who was holding her baby. Castillo was released from prison in August 1999 but was arrested two months later for violating terms of his probation when he failed to enter a drug-rehabilitation program and report to his probation officer, court records show. Castillo was previously convicted of armed robbery in 1987 and two counts of aggravated battery in 1990. - --- MAP posted-by: Richard Lake